Computer Vision for Dummies » Some conclusions about visual image search engines

Filed under: Image search, reviews, rants — Peter @ 3:21 am

Visual image search engines exist only as experimental prototypes (demos, toys, etc). Worse yet, many make broad claims with nothing to back them up. If you have the technology, how hard is it to create a little web based demo!
Most demos work with small collections of images, with no upload feature, which makes testing impossible.
When testing is possible, the results are questionable. T
he only well developed approaches are based on the distribution of colors, texture, and image segmentation.
Fourier/wavelet transform has been mostly used for image compression.
The engines provide only “likeness” search, which is completely subjective and obscures the fact the image analysis methods are inadequate.
“User feedback”, “learning”, and “semantic” features obscure the fact the image analysis methods are inadequate.

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